Posts Tagged ‘ring finger’

Multi-Perspective Palm Reading demonstrates how fingerprint types can become a significant tool in finding diseases and other genetically determined characteristics in an individual. This article demonstrates how radial loop fingerprints can be used for recognizing Down syndrome (trisomy 21).

Even though radial loop fingerprints are less commonly see in people who have Down syndrome (radial loops are more commonly seen in the general population), the rather a-typical distribution of radial loops across the fingers of Down syndrome patients provides a very significant clue!

This is due to the fact that radial loops usually tend to manifest on the index finger and/or middle finger. In the gneral population almost 80% of radial loop fingerprints tend to be found on the index finger (2nd finger).

However, in Down syndrome radial loops tend to manifest on the ringer finger of pinky (about 75% of radial loops in Down syndrome are spotted on these fingers) – see the picture at the top of this article.

NOTICE: Despite these facts one should always be aware that a single radial loop in isolation from the rest of the hand is a meaningless marker. Even in perfectly healthy intelligent people one can sometimes find a radial loop on the ring finger or pinky. This implicates that a consideration of other perspectives of the hand (especially hand shape & finger length morphology) is always required in order to associate a radial loop fingerprint in an individual with Down syndrom!

– THE TOP 10 HAND SIGNS FOR RECOGNIZING DOWN SYNDROME –

This TOP 10 is composed from a list of 27 hand signs for Down syndrome, and the hand signs are ranked by Log Odds Ratio – which are calculated from the prevalence (%) among Down syndrome patients & controls.

It is interesting to notice here that 4 of the 10 hand signs relate to the palmar hypothenar (‘mount of Moon’ in the fields of palmistry), and additionally the majority of these hand signs relate to the ulnar side of the hand (hypothenar + the pinky and ring finger).

And it is fascinating to notice that these TOP 10 hand signs significant for Down syndrome is a mix of hand features that relate to both the palm (6 hand signs) and fingers (4 hand signs).

How to recognize common hand characteristics from uncommon hand characteristics?

The picture above provides a point of reference: it describes 40 typical hand characteristics that can be described as ‘common’: 20 characteristics for the right hand + 20 characteristics for the left hand.

As a matter of fact, there are quite a few other common hand characteristic. However, the combination presented in the picture above illustrates which hand features (e.g. fingerprint types) are found most commonly in which zone of the hand. As you can seen: there are significant differences between the right- and left hand!

The 40 hand characteristics (32 dermatoglyphic + 8 line features ) include :

• 10 Fingerprints (5 in each hand): on each finger your can find one of the four basis types of fingerprints (whorl, ulnar loop, radial loop or arch);

• 10 Palmar deltas – a.k.a. ‘triradii’ (5 in each hand) : one below each of the 8 fingers + the so-called ‘axial triradius’, which is usually found in the zone near the wrist on the hypothenar (mount of moon);

– 10 Central palmar ridge lines (5 in each hand): starting in the palmar deltas these ridge lines always first progress towards the center of the palm, but they typically exit the palm at specific locations (for example: the ridge line starting in the delta below the pinky finger exits the palm in the right hand typically between the index finger and the middle finger, however in the left hand the same ridge line tends to exit the palm between the middle finger and the ring finger);

– 2 Palmar loops (1 in each hand): in the right hand the palmar loop is typically found between the middle finger and the ring finger, but in the left hand the palmar loop is typically found between the ring finger and the pinky finger;

– 6 Major creases – a.k.a. primary hand lines (3 in each hand): which terminate independently somewhere inside the palm (= the life line, head line & heart line);

– 2 Line connections (1 in each hand): at the starting point of the life line and the head line are typically connected.

NOTICE: Though each of these 40 hand characteristics is quite common, nobody in the world has all these 40 characteristics!

Especially this specific combination of 10 fingerprints is actually extremely rare; because the combination seen in the left hand: one arch combined in the same hand with 2 whorls is extremely rare on itself!

Combining this extremely rare with e.g. the radial loop + the other specific patterns on the right hand (which is seen in about 1% of all people) makes it quite unlikely that these 10 fingerprints will be observed in any person.

Finally, the anthropometric hand data presented in the picture are taken from e.g. the German BAuA, UK data from the ‘Handbook of normal physical measurements’ + 3 sources which represent large US populations. And these 40 hand characteristics together provide a new helpfull ‘point of reference’ in the perspective of Multi-Perspective Palm Reading. Especially regarding the study of hand characteristics in the so-called ‘phantom pictures’!

The ring finger has been associated with the wearing of rings in married men and women since the Roman times. And this tradition appears to origin in the early belief that a nerve, vein or artery runs directly from the 4th digit to the heart, and therefore it became judged to be the seat of the emotions. However, medical science today does not present any anatomical evidence that confirms this early belief. Nevertheless, there are other explanations why the ring finger became associated with marriage!

Despite the missing of anatomical evidence for a connection with the heart, there is alternative evidence which suggest that wearing a ring on the ring finger can be associated with the ‘control’ of brute emotions.

CASANOVA:

Anecdotal evidence is found in the memoirs of Giacomo Casanova from Venice, who became known as one of the most famous ‘womanisers’ of all times. Casanova’s life as an adventurous writer took him across Europe, and in his memoirs about his stay in Spain we learn of the relative length of his fingers. Casanova described a dispute with the painter Anton Raphael Mengs about the ‘human condition’ of the ratio between the index finger and the ring finger. While Menge was claiming that his longer index finger was the correct human condition, Casanova claimed that his long finger was ”like that of all the children descended from Adam’.

But Casanova was not aware that his claim was basically only true for men only!

COMMITMENT:

Professor John Manning from the UK presented two books devoted to the ‘2D:4D digit ratio’. In his first book, Manning presented some evidence that the wearing of rings in married women can be understood as an act of ‘advertising’ their commitment to their marriage.

Additionally, the study also demonstrated that a considerable lower percentage of the married men (29%) was wearing a ring on their ring finger – while the percentage was considerably higher for the married women (71%).

PRENATAL MARKER:

Today especially the length of the ring finger became known as a prenatal marker for masculinity, and in all regions of the world studies have confirmed that in males the absolute length of the ring finger is usually longer than the absolute length of the index finger. And some studies have pointed out that the sexual dimorphism in finger measures is even more strongly expressed in the distal extent of fingertips than in the length of fingers.

In his second book ‘The Finger book’ Prof. John Manning describes a few references to scientific studies dating back to the 19th and early 20 century:

“The ‘Casanova pattern’ in the fingers is considered by some to be the mark of an ugly hand – an atavistic hand recalling brute instincts and behaviours, modelling the forms of the fingers of our monkey relatives. Thus the ‘beast’ in us is represented by the ring finger while the ‘beauty’ resides in the index finger. This notion has led to suggestions that the femininised ‘Mengs pattern’ is of a purer type, a hand which signifies emancipation from our primate ancestry. … Science, however, has been slow to identify the importance of such connections. That there is a sex difference in the relative length of men’s and women’s fing and index fingers has been known for more than a century. Compared to sex differences arising at puberty the finger ratio is modest in its size and visibility, and it has been neglegted.”

These considerations provide an explanation about why the 4th finger became known as the ‘ring finger’. The ringfinger became also known as the 4th finger or the annulus (digitus annularis).

BOOKS:

The following books about fingers are highly recommended to read much more about fingers (presenting various elements that can be described as ‘building stones’ in Mult-Perspective Palm Reading):